Archive for the ‘Issue of the Week’ Category

Hey there — I’m Christopher Dorobek — the DorobekINSIDER — welcome to GovLoop Insights Issue of the Week with Chris Dorobek… where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

Also ahead on the program… We’ll also have your weekend reading list — the weekends are a good time to rejuvenate — but also some time to take a step back and ponder. And we’ll have some reading that may guide you as you work to think outside of the box. And we actually have a video for you that may just remind you why you do what you do each day.

Nicholas has just passed 9-months. And it has been an amazing nine months. There are challenges, mind you — many of us are used to fixing problems, and with a child, you quickly learn that it isn’t always possible to fix those issues.

When I left the afternoon show, I promised that I wasn’t going to disappear. And I haven’t. But I’m really excited about what I’m doing now.

As you know, my mission is summed up in six word: Helping government do its job better. And I work to do that… through this blog, through audio and video content… through events… and I now am going to be working with GovLoop. I have been doing these Friday weekly reviews for several months now. And we will continue to focus on the issue of the week on Fridays. But there will be more: the DorobekINSIDER program will also be here each weekday.

Our goal is to post by noon ET — you can stream us at lunch, so while you’re feeding your body, you can also have some food for thought.

The program will be similar to my former radio show: A mix of news and newsmakers, innovators, thought leaders, books… and even some off the wall kind of stories. We will focus on leadership, technology, acquisition, policy, pay and benefits and your career. Yes, we’ll occasionally have somebody who just blows your socks off… but we’ll also have those “boring but important” stories — our vegetables that are so important to our thought diet. But we’ll also have some fun. (Yes, that too!)

One of my own goals is to challenge myself to find new ways of reporting and telling stories… those stories that help you do your job better. And I think GovLoop is the perfect partner in that quest.

While the GovLoop Insights DorobekINSIDER program will be similar to my former program, there will be several significant differences. First, we aren’t slaves to a clock. If a conversation is going really well, we’re going to keep going. There is no need to hit news at the top of the hour… or weather and traffic, for that matter.

But the most significant difference is GovLoop. We are working to integrate DorobekINSIDER content into GovLoop in a number of ways. The most significant: We are hoping to crowdsource the production of a radio program. We are going to be as transparent as possible — and what we are working on (and why)… about the questions we plan to ask. And we hope that you will be involved. Is there an issue that we should cover? Are there questions we should ask? Is there a challenge you are facing?

We are also working to integrate content across GovLoop’s communities. If we do an interview with somebody, we hope you will offer your thoughts, insights and analysis to the discussion.

If you have ideas about how we can do that, let us know. To put it simply: We don’t have all the answers. And we do believe that all of us are smarter then each of us individually.

We will also be using some of the awesome GovLoop content as fodder for this program — so keep up the good work.

Many things will not change. This is journalism — and it will continue to be. There are always questions about why somebody covered something in a certain way. If you have those questions, ask us. We actually love those questions.

We will also post each interview individually on DorobekINSIDER — along with the relevant links where you can get more information… and to the community on GovLoop where the discussion is happening. And there will be highlights of those interviews in the community sections. It sounds more complex then it is.

And, of course, we’ll be on all the platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Google+. Yes, even LinkedIN. Find those links here.

The team

I have an awesome team working with me on the program. Emily Jarvis is the producer of the program. Emily was my producer for my WFED program. She is one of those young people who educates me. She is smart and passionate — and always eager to learn. She can be reached at ejarvis@dorobekinsider.com.

And Stephen Peteritas, who has been producing the Friday Issue of the Week program, is still part of the team. He is working to integrate content throughout GovLoop. Stephen can be reached at stephen@govloop.com.

Finally, a few words of thanks… to Scott Burns, the CEO of GovLoop’s parent company, GovDelivery… to Steve Ressler, the founder of GovLoop… and to Doug Mashkuri, GovLoop’s director of business development. I have known each of them for years. I had many options about my next steps — and I selected GovLoop because of their vision for this platform… and the fact that they share my passion about those six words: Help the government do its job better. I’m thrilled to be working with them.

I’m so excited about this. I often tell people that I am the luckiest person on the planet. I love what I do every day. I get to help smart people tackle big challenges.

And I think these are remarkable times. Yes, in some ways they are very difficult times — and you know that. But they are also amazing times. And you can do amazing things.

Each week, our goal is to where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

This week, we’ve talked about the challenges of dealing with big data. We’re going to tell you about a company that is going just that — for the intelligence agencies… for the Recovery Board… it’s a story of the Silicon Valley coming to Washington successfully, and it may also be an indication of the direction of government contracting. We’ll talk about the company Palantir.

And as we head into the weekend, we’ll have your weekend reading list… weekends are a time to rejuvenate — but also some time to take a step back and ponder. And we’ll have some reading that may guide you as you work be innovative… to think outside of the box. We’ll have information about the DorobekINSIDER Book Club — it’s coming up on Tuesday Wednesday at the Adobe Government Assembly… and we’ll have details.

But… after the break… we start off as we do every week with a look at the week that was for government… for the first week of February 2012…

Each week, our goal is to where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

This week, we’re going to get geeky… we’re going to embrace our inner nerd. This week was the annual gadget-a-thon known as CES — the Consumer Electronics Show out in Las Vegas. I got to attend for the first time this year — both to CES and CES Government. One of the key speakers was Steve VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer. And later on, we’ll have highlights of his speech, and talk about what it means for you.

Also later on, we’ll have our weekend reading list — the weekends are a good time to rejuvenate — but also some time to take a step back and ponder. And we’ll have some reading that may guide you as you work to think outside of the box.

But after the break, we’ll have our look at the week that was for the second week of January 2012… plus the full Week in Review…

Hey there — I’m Christopher Dorobek — the DorobekINSIDER — welcome to GovLoop InsightsIssue of the Week with Chris Dorobek… where each week, our goal is to find an issue — a person — an idea — then helped define the past 7-days… and we work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

And for the month of December, we have been taking taking a break from the issue of the week — and we are taking a look at the issues that defined government for the year. And next week, we’ll talk about the issue of the year — I don’t think anybody will be surprised, but… we’ll talk about it next week.

And then last week, we spoke about how transparency and open government can really help you get your job done — talking to Earl Devaney, who is retiring from government after more than 40 years… for the past two years, he has been the chairman of the Recovery, Accountability and Transparency Board.

This week, we are going to talk to one of the concepts that is really changing… well, it’s changing so much in technology, but it is also having a huge impact on government… and I’m going to bring you some highlights of one of the best speeches that you probably didn’t hear.

But we’re going to start off this week, as we have so many week’s this year, talking about… yes, the budget. And it was a roller coaster week — one of many this year. After it seemed likely that there could be a government shutdown, House and Senate negotiators this week signed off on a more than $1 trillion, year-end spending bill and it made its way through the House on Friday.

The bill is more than 1,200 pages and Politico reports that it covers a remarkable breath of topics — domestic spending… the Pentagon and foreign aid — plus tens of billions more related to the war in Afghanistan.

The funding bill sets government spending for the year at $1.043 trillion, a level agreed to in an August deal that raised the nation’s legal borrowing limit. The figure represents a 1.5 percent drop in spending from the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

That doesn’t count $115 billion for overseas military operations, a $43 billion dip since this past year as the war in Iraq winds down. It also doesn’t include $8.1 billion in emergency disaster-relief spending.

The measure covers spending for three-fourths of the government. A number of agencies were covered in the November deal including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, State, and Transportation, as well as NASA and some smaller agencies. This deal covers the all other agencies.

And as a result of this deal, most domestic programs will see cuts as part of the effort to reduce the deficit.

The measure omits funding for the Internal Revenue Service to prepare for the 2014 implementation of the federal health-care law. But it increases funding for border agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It includes $8.4 billion for the EPA — a $233 million drop from last year. And provides $550 million for Obama’s signature Race to the Top education program, a cut of more than 20 percent.

The other big event, which seemed to get less attention, is the end of the war in Iraq after nine years. The flag of American forces in Iraq has been lowered in Baghdad, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told troops the mission had been worth the cost in blood and dollars. I’ll leave that debate to others.

About 4,000 US soldiers now remain in Iraq, but they are due to leave in the next two weeks. At the peak of the operation, US forces there numbered 170,000.

With that, we turn to one of 2011’s big issues — even if you don’t work in technology, you’ve heard of cloud. Last week, we spoke with Earl Devaney of the Recovery Board about how cloud computing allowed the Recovery Board to be much more agile then it could otherwise.

I go to a lot of events and hear a lot of speakers. Many of them are very good — and many of them seek to peer into the future. But one of the best futurists I heard all year was John Rucker. He isn’t a professional speaker. In fact, he even jokes that he looks like a fed. And he is a fed. Rucker is the acting lead for the Department of Veterans Affairs data center consolidation initiative. And he gave a revealing look at the future of technology — and of cloud computing in the government.

After the break… I have his full speech — and his slides as well. But I wanted to bring you two highlights of his speech.

I noted that VA has long been seen as one of the most hapless agencies for government IT. VA CIO Roger Baker and VA CTO Peter Levin have made enormous strides to change that — and Rucker called him the best CIO he has seen in his more than 30 years of government service.

But he noted the cloud is going to have a big impact on the future of government technology…

John Rucker of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He also said the cloud isn’t for everything…

John Rucker… he is the acting lead for the Department of Veterans Affairs data center consolidation initiative.

As I say, the speech doesn’t have flash — but I think it is one of the most far sighted assessments of government technology that I’ve heard.

It’s GovLoop — I’d love to hear what you think. Do you agree with his assessment? Or is cloud just a lot of hype?

Again, after the break, hear the speech in full… and the DorobekINSIDER must read list…

The GovLoop Insights Issue of the Week is changing a few for December. Generally, we try to find a issue — a person — an idea — that helped define the past 7-days… and we always work to find an issue that will also will have an impact on the days, weeks and months ahead. And, as always, we focus on six words: helping you do your job better.

For the month of December, we are taking a break from the issue of the week — and we are taking a look at the issues that defined government for the year. And we’ll unveil the issue that defined 2011 later this month. But that gives us a few weeks to look at a few of the big issues of the year. And this week, we’re going to talk about cyber-security and making sense of big data.

But first, a look at some of the big stories for the end of November and the beginning of December, 2011 — yes, the final month of the year.

There is really little doubt about what the big issue is for the third week of November — it has really been one of the most dominant issues this year.

But before we get to that, there were two other issues this week…And this week, we learned that feds are not quite as thrilled with their jobs. In fact, satisfaction among federal workers is down for the first time in four years, according to an annual Best Places to Work survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service. Given the age of austerity, that probably isn’t a huge surprise. The Washington Post reports that 64 percent of employees were satisfied with their work across the federal government. That represents a slight drop of 1.5 percentage points from last year but the most pronounced dip in the history of the “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” rankings. Morale improved at just 31 of the 308 federal agencies, bureaus, departments and offices in the survey.

Another significant milestone this week — and it involves GovLoop. The up-start social network for government passed 50,000 members this week. GovLoop founder Steve Ressler said he remembers being a fed and being asked to do something that every agency was doing — yet being frustrated that there wasn’t an effective way to share what worked — and what didn’t. And GovLoop was created. It’s a remarkable platform and Steve deserves a lot of credit for having created it. Over the weekend, we’ll post my conversation with Steve Ressler about the creation of GovLoop.

And don’t miss the GovLoop/NASPAA scholarship contest — GovLoop asked if they only had $100 million to spend, what would they do. Read the answers — and vote for your favorites… we have the link online. To use a Steve Ressler term — awesome.

But the GovLoop Insights Issue of the Week, as it has been so often this year — it’s the budget. First the good news, such that it is…

The House and Senate managed to pass a budget bill. The Washington Post calls it a detailed vision of the federal government on a diet.” The House and Senate late in the week approved a $130.4 billion measure to fund five Cabinet departments, the first big budget bill since this summer’s promise of greater austerity.

And this week, the Obama administration announced the winner for the third round of the SAVE awards — the Securing Americans Value and Efficiency awards. This is a contest to find the best way to save money. There were four finalist for the ideas they proposed — the person who proposed the winning idea gets to meet with President Obama. And the winner is… Matthew Ritsko of Crofton, MD, who recommended the creation of a centralized tool repository, or “lending library,” for NASA employees to use when developing and building space flight projects.

Create a tool “lending library” for NASA flight projects
Matthew Ritsko of Crofton, Maryland
Financial Manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
At Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA employees purchase specialized tools and ground support equipment for developing and building flight projects. Many of the tools are not tracked once projects are complete, and as a result funds are wasted on duplicative purchases. In order to cut down on repeat purchases, Matthew suggests creating a centralized tool repository — or “lending library” — where these tools can be stored, catalogued, and checked in and out by NASA employees.

Despite a few steps forward, there is still broad concern that the budget process is still broken — and that there are still significant issues. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Journal said that “Washington is set to let down the nation yet again, as the supercommittee approaches its deadline with no real chances of a deal.”Of course, the deadline for the deal comes up next week.Rosalind Heldermanis a congressional reporter for the Washington Post. And she says that there are very important days ahead…Rosalind Helderman is a congressional reporter for the Washington Post.

Next week we will be seeking your thoughts on the issues of the YEAR. Throughout December, we will look at the stories that shaped 2011. And we hope you’ll help craft our list.

Finally, I just wanted to thank you for the work you do. I know times are tough, but having covered the government for a long time now, I know that you are the best and the brightest… and you will find the opportunities to make the changes. And I’m happy to help.